


Define Politics

by Christine M (HowNovel)



Category: Starman (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-05-27
Updated: 1998-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowNovel/pseuds/Christine%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starman and Scott consider the nature of 'politics,' in this brief conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Define Politics

Define Politics

By Chris M

© 1998

 

“Come on, Dad, there’s something I’ve got to show you!” Scott led his father to the kitchen table, which now sagged slightly under the weight of two enormous books, a magnifying glass, and a jumbo box of Cheese Doodles. “I found it at the library book sale!”

Starman looked at the treasure dubiously. “A dictionary?”

“It’s not just a dictionary, Dad, it’s the OED!” The Oxford English Dictionary was, Scott explained to his father, the most complete listing of English words in the world, showing not only their meanings, but examples of their use and evolution through history. Each book held thousands of pages, and each page showed four normal pages reduced to miniscule print: eighteen volumes reduced to two which all but the most sharp-eyed would need the magnifying glass to read.

“I heard this is all I need to get an ‘A’ on a paper,” explained Scott. “It knocks the teachers dead!” Starman lifted one of the volumes and considered. “You’d have to grow some muscles on that skinny frame first, if you’re going to throw it hard enough to do that.” He wiggled his eyebrows as Scott snorted in disgust.

“No, really, Dad. Say I had to write a paper. You can look up _anything_ in this.”

“Even ‘dirty words’?” asked Starman. “I don’t really understand them.”

“You go first,” said Scott, suddenly cautious.

“How about ‘politics,’” suggested Starman, who had been watching a great many network news programs recently.

“Okay, so say I had to write a paper on politics,” said the adolescent boy, sounding relieved (but mentally filing the idea away for future reference). “I can’t think how to start or what to say or how I really feel about it. I look it up in the OED, and it gives me ideas to get started, and quotes to impress the teachers….”

Turning the pages of the second volume to the P’s, Scott set the magnifying glass aside as his flexible young eyes adjusted to the small print. Starman made a more conscious adjustment of the mechanisms of his cloned eyes-actually younger than Scott’s, but aged to approximate those of a man in his late thirties-and the two were soon completely engrossed in the contemplation of a language enriched by countless cultures and generations.

Two heads almost touched as father and son bent over the book, while two hands carried a continuous supply of Cheese Doodles from box to mouths, fueling the voyage of exploration. Starman and Scott traveled the sea of print, calling out new discoveries and points of interest to each other.

“Pertaining to citizens… civic, civil… relating to a constitutional state, as distinct from a despotism….”

“Characterized by policy, of persons apt at pursuing a policy… sagacious, prudent, shrewd… judicious, expedient, skillfully contrived….”

“1594-Shakespeare: ‘then this land was famously enriched, with politic, grave Counsel….’” Starman looked up at Scott. “’This doesn’t sound that bad,” he said. “Why do they say the word as if it’s a bad thing?”

“Yeah, but listen to this,” countered Scott: “In a sinister sense, scheming, crafty, cunning!”

“Diplomatic-artfully contriving,” riposted Starman. “That branch of moral philosophy dealing with the state of social organism as a whole! …In 1739, Hume said, ‘Politics consider men as united in society, and dependent on each other’-and in 1789, Gouv. Morris said, ‘I mean politics in the great sense, that sublime science which embraces as its object the happiness of mankind.’”

“Yeah, but look what Disraeli said in 1826,” shouted Scott, having become somewhat overwrought due to the metabolic effect of a surfeit of Cheese Doodles. “’There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honor!’” Scott added for good measure, a little red in the face, “Ha!”

Starman, who (following an embarrassing social incident caused by overindulgence in doughnuts) had long ago learned to control the effects of Earth foods on his brain chemistry, remained calm. “Yes, Scott, I can see this is… complicated. But Priestly said in 1788, ‘The share that he may have in directing the affairs of society may be called his political liberty.’ Doesn’t that mean that politics are… is… something honorable people must do if they live in a free society-‘as distinct from despotism,’ as it says here?”

“You mean, politics is something people do together and agree on? A process, not a thing in itself? Oh-oh,” said Scott, thinking of the attitude of the culture he lived in. “If that’s true, it means that if everybody thinks politics is a bad thing, that says more about the people themselves than it does about politics itself?”

“Maybe the political process is a mirror a people holds up to itself,” mused Starman. “It can show them who they really are. “With some people, it might show them things they don’t like to see, but then they can change that.”

“If they’re smart enough to look,” observed Scott.

“Remember Dusty… Joanna… in Reno?” asked Starman.

“Yes,” said Scott. “Once she looked in the mirror, she saw what she needed to know to get where she needed to go. She was really okay, she just had to see it.”

“That reminds me of something,” said Starman. “This… OED is going to be hard to fit in your bag if we have to hit the road again.” Then another thought struck him.

“What does this say about ‘doodles’? It is a very… insubstantial… food.”

THE END


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